The Sound Absorption Coefficient of Railway Concrete Sleepers Containing Palm Oil Fuel Ash (POFA) As a Cement Replacement Material

Major noise and vibration during train operation can cause disturbance to the surrounding. One of the methods to reduce this disturbance are by installing concrete sleepers. The use of railway concrete sleepers may be a high potential to reduce the noise and vibration. To produce concrete sleepers cement usage will be used with greater volume. Approximately 100 million tons of Palm Oil Fuel Ash (POFA) was disposed to the landfill currently. POFA contains high silica content and porous particles which indicated its pozzolanic properties and sound absorption characteristics. Therefore, this study was to determine the sound absorption coefficient of railway concrete sleepers containing POFA as a cement replacement material. Concrete sleepers with a strength grade of 55 and a w/c ratio of 0.35 were prepared in this study. Three design mixes with 0% (control), 20%, and 40% of POFA tested by using an impedance tube test at 28 days of curing age. The results show, the sound absorption coefficient and noise reduction coefficient increases as the percentage of POFA increases. The best performance was obtained by concrete sleepers containing 40% of POFA, with a recorded sound absorption coefficient of 0.10 for low frequency and 0.44 for high frequency. Meanwhile, the noise reduction coefficient recorded was 0.33, which reduce 32% of noise compared to OPC.